LGF Post-Mortem

Steve McIntyre is a retired statistician who decided to fact-check the claims of the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) crowd. What he found was a disturbing lack of openness compounded by a one-way error pattern that suggested something else besides science was afoot. Recently, however, he was able to get his mitts on the key data behind the infamous, and debunked, hockey-stick graph. In this post, he lays out a case demolishing the claim.

Over the weekend, the 'good folks' at RealClimate posted a snarky, ad-hominem -laced counterattack on their website. A few things struck me, to whit:

• They signed it "group". Hey, if it's so definitive, why not put your names / handles on it?
• The worship of Al Gore struck me as odd; can't seem to remember why, though...
• I counted ten graphs in their post. If those scientists release data at the rate Keith Briffa did we should see this data by oh, 2045 or so.
• Given the well-documented underhandedness involved in getting the hockey-stick graph into the public-consciousness, why shouldn't we be very skeptical of this crowd?
• I noticed that they devoted exactly one, three sentence paragraph to directly refuting Steve's allegations. They then switched over to a ten-graph fusillade to refute Steve's post. They try to make this look like an attack from strength, but in finessing his reply they tacitly admit to Briffa's very weak hand.
  
• Q: Again, where's the data behind those graphs?

I was going to post this over on this post at LGF, but given the darkness that's descended there, I reconsidered. Given that I don't post here very often, I doubt anyone will see this or care, but I think it needs to be said. Maybe I should blog a little more often...